Related Topics

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE, Aug 13 (Reuters) - U.S. President
Barack Obama congratulated NASA scientists on Monday for landing
a rover on Mars, promising to keep up key space investments and
jokingly asking if they could keep him posted on any contact
with Martians.

In a phone call from Air Force One to the space agency's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in California, Obama lauded their
"incredible success" of having landed the nuclear-powered
Curiosity rover on the Red Planet last week.

"Through your dedicated effort, Curiosity stuck her landing
and captured the attention and imagination of millions of
people," he said, using the gymnastics term the day after the
Olympic Games wrapped up in London.

"It's really mind-boggling what you've been able to
accomplish, and being able to get that whole landing sequence to
work the way you did is a testimony to your team," Obama said.

The science rover's landing came as a welcome success for
NASA, which has been beleaguered by science budget cuts and the
cancellation of its 30-year-old space shuttle program.

Obama, who has made a focus on engineering, math and science
the centerpiece of his education policy, did not specify funding
plans, but offered NASA "a personal commitment to protect these
critical investments in science and technology" and said the
rover was set to prompt more work on and about Mars.

"Our expectation is that Curiosity is going to be telling us
things that we did not know before and laying the groundwork for
an even more audacious undertaking in the future, and that's a
human mission to the Red Planet," he said.

Curiosity has been called the first fully equipped mobile
laboratory sent to another world. Its mission is to search for
evidence that the planet most similar to Earth now harbors, or
once hosted, the key ingredients necessary for the evolution of
microbial life.

In his call to the NASA team, Obama said he wanted a quick
update if they do find signs of life on Mars.

"If in fact you do make contact with Martians please let me
know right away," the president said, to laughter. "I've got a
lot of other things on my plate, but I suspect that that will go
to the top of the list. Even if they're just microbes it will be
pretty exciting."

The president also joked that he may want to emulate the
look of Bobak Ferdowski, the 32-year-old flight engineer known
to fans as "the NASA Mohawk Guy" because of his
stars-and-stripes punk rock hairdo.

"I in the past thought about getting a Mohawk myself but my
team keeps on discouraging me," Obama said on the call, telling
the scientists they had "come a long way" from the dark-rimmed
glasses and pocket protectors they were long known for.